World Bank Blogshttp://blogs.worldbank.org/planet.xml
IBRD and IDA: Working for a World Free of Poverty.enCan the Internet Solve Conflict?http://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/can-internet-solve-conflict
<p>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/4948157085/" rel="nofollow" title="Buildings in need of repair by World Bank Photo Collection, on Flickr"><img alt="Buildings in need of repair" height="300" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4087/4948157085_ddb96fd171.jpg" style="float:left" title="" width="400" /></a> Over the past decade there has been growing interest in using the internet and other communication technologies for conflict management and peacebuilding. Two key areas have emerged: (1) using publicly available data on events and social dynamics to monitor and predict escalations of tensions or violence, and (2) harnessing the increased access to the internet and mobile telephones to promote positive peace. In both areas exciting innovations have developed as well as encouraging results.</p>
<p>
In the first area, perhaps the most comprehensive information source is Kalev Leetaru’s “Global Database of Society” or <a href="http://gdeltproject.org/" rel="nofollow">GDELT Project</a> that “monitors the world's broadcast, print, and web news from nearly every corner of every country in over 100 languages and identifies the people, locations, organizations, counts, themes, sources, and events driving our global society”. The event database alone covers 300 categories of peace-conflict activities recorded in public media since January 1979, while the identification of people, organizations and locations enables network graphing of connections in media records.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>
Another widely used open data source is the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (<a href="http://www.acleddata.com/" rel="nofollow">ACLED</a>) that covers political violence and events in Africa since 1997 and releases weekly updates to provide close to real time coverage. ACLED releases its own monthly <a href="http://www.acleddata.com/research-and-publications/conflict-trends-reports/" rel="nofollow">conflict trends report</a> and its data has been used in almost 300 research projects to date.<br />
<br />
Making data easily accessible and available is only part of the solution: there is still the task of using the data to understand how conflict and violence emerge and whether predictions can be made to mitigate escalations. USAID and Humanity United recently ran a <a href="http://www.thetechchallenge.org/winners/model.html" rel="nofollow">modelling competition</a> for applicants to develop algorithms to predict mass atrocities. The winning application put forward an algorithm that could predict atrocities in regions with limited or no past history of mass violence. One problem in the forecasting literature is the trade-off between “false positives” – predicted episodes that do not actually occur—and “false negatives” – unexpected episodes that do occur. If we know many of our predictions of conflict may not materialize this will surely influence our planned policy responses to these predictions.<br />
<br />
In another application of publicly available data, <a href="http://www.cartercenter.org/news/features/p/conflict_resolution/mcnaboe-syria-mapping-project.html" rel="nofollow">Chris McNaboe</a> of the Carter Center has been tracking the development of opposition groups in Syria from social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Through mapping out factions and defectors he hopes to better equip parties working to resolve the conflict as well as help humanitarian groups work more safely in the region. Another technological innovation is <a href="http://www.aymta.com/" rel="nofollow">Dlshad Othman’s app</a> that aims to warn Syrians of approaching SCUD missiles. Experts watch for SCUD missiles and when one is spotted, phone messages are automatically sent to Syrians at risk of being affected.<br />
<br />
Separate from these efforts to use publicly available data to monitor, predict and forewarn of violence and security threats, there is a growing cluster of new methods to communicate information to and among individuals and groups affected by violence. <a href="http://www.sisiniamani.org/" rel="nofollow">Sisi Ni Amani</a> and <a href="http://thesentinelproject.org/projects/" rel="nofollow">Una Hakika</a> have both used SMS technology to address tensions and mitigate violence in Kenya. Following the 2013 elections, Sisi Ni Amani used mass SMS to de-escalate tensions by communicating messages that aimed to help Kenyans realize their common needs irrespective of political divides, while Una Hakika, which translates to “Are you sure?” in Swahili, was used to interrupt the spreading of false rumors. A recent workshop at the Media Lab at MIT brought together peace-tech innovators to share ideas on how to <a href="http://howtobuildpeace.org/build-peace-2014/" rel="nofollow">build peace</a>. Some of the ideas that caught my eye included: <a href="http://about.masterpeace.org/" rel="nofollow">masterpeace.org</a> – an online community to share news about peacebuilding activities across the world; <a href="http://lyvoices.org/" rel="nofollow">Libyan Youth Voices</a> – a forum to fill the media void on information relating to youth issues in Libya; using SMS for participation in peacebuilding in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahkNgQJW2c4" rel="nofollow">Mali</a>; provision of open data on elections in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHDs4UPDOSA" rel="nofollow">MENA</a>; <a href="http://www.naqeshny.com/" rel="nofollow">Naqueshny</a> - an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NalNRUcKbAE" rel="nofollow">online forum</a> to enable peaceful discussion and debating on Egypt.<br />
<br />
The internet alone is unlikely to solve conflict – something that Vint Cerf, Chief Evangelist for Google, makes clear in an <a href="http://www.usip.org/publications/entrepreneurs-hunt-peace-tech-defuse-conflict" rel="nofollow">excellent discussion</a> with Jane Holl Lute, a former UN Peacekeeping and US Government Official. However, the use of technology to promote positive peace is gathering momentum and is adding to every peacebuilders’ toolkit. The ability to tap into large swathes of data to monitor tensions should help us pre-empt violence before it has the opportunity to escalate, while the increasing global connected-ness of individuals across the world can bridge gaps between cultures and identities, helping us to peacefully learn about our commonalities as well as our differences.<br />
&nbsp;</p>
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 03:10:00 -0400Laura RalstonGuns, Drugs and Developmenthttp://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/guns-drugs-and-development
<p>
<strong>Trafficking in West Africa<br />
<br />
<img alt="" src="/futuredevelopment/files/futuredevelopment/Gunspic.jpg" style="height:406px; margin:10px 110px; width:540px" /><br />
<br />
Trafficking is not new to West Africa, but its magnitude is</strong>. From Northern Mali to The Gambia, smugglers have traded fuel, cigarettes and staple food for decades. Longstanding trade routes and interregional tribal connections have allowed illegal cross-border trading to grow alongside traditional commercial practices.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>
Moroccan cannabis was one of the first trafficked goods to appear in the region, arriving in the 1990s. South American cocaine followed, in part due to increased demand in Europe. &nbsp;As rebel groups in the region have flexed their muscle, the market for trafficked weapons has increased throughout the past decade, from secessionist movements in Niger and Mali, to Boko Haram and Delta rebels in Nigeria, to the Young Patriots in Côte d’Ivoire. Valuable natural resources, such as <a href="http://bit.ly/1kCXwAu" rel="nofollow">oil</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/PSAf3x" rel="nofollow">diamonds</a>, and <a href="http://bit.ly/1qeFsxW" rel="nofollow">timber</a>, are illegally acquired and frequently traded for cash to sustain criminal and rebel activities.<br />
<br />
While estimates vary, the size of these illicit flows runs into the billions of dollars annually, making trafficking one of the most lucrative economic activities in the region and undermining traditional local revenue sources. Diversified trafficking networks span the entire region. Some serve local markets (arms, cannabis), while others target consumers of developed countries (cocaine, heroin, diamonds).<br />
<br />
Instability across the region has raised the profile of trafficking and the toxic influence of trafficking revenues adds fuel to an already burning fire. Several recent studies have highlighted the role of trafficking networks’ direct connections to the rebellion in northern <a href="http://bit.ly/1kCXLLO" rel="nofollow">Mali in 2011</a>, increased instability due to organized crime in the<a href="http://ceip.org/1g0TjmL" rel="nofollow"> Sahel</a>, the political crisis in <a href="http://bit.ly/1mUkJlS" rel="nofollow">Guinea-Bissau</a>, and at a <a href="http://bit.ly/1ikPola" rel="nofollow">broader level</a>, security issues across the region.<br />
<br />
Trafficking is not only a security issue but a development challenge as well. Organized crime directly <a href="http://bit.ly/QXqe6s" rel="nofollow">undermines state- and peace-building </a>. To better understand how trafficking interplays with fragility and development in West Africa, we recently exchanged views with researchers on this topic (here is a <a href="http://bit.ly/1g0TFK3" rel="nofollow">link to the recording</a> of the event). Some preliminary findings:<br />
<br />
<strong>Trafficking and fragility do not necessarily go hand-in-hand</strong>. Trafficking happens virtually everywhere, in developed and fragile countries, although some countries show much greater resilience to the ill-effects of trafficking than others. The reason may lie in the interplay of trafficking with pre-existing drivers of fragility. Take Guinea-Bissau: a weak state characterized by a history of concentrated political power, a politicized military and widespread state corruption, have made it particularly vulnerable to trafficking. In more resilient states such as Ghana or Senegal, good infrastructure and a developed financial sector increased opportunities for money-laundering and small-scale air-shipping, but the political process remained largely insulated.&nbsp; &nbsp;<br />
<br />
<strong>Where trafficking exacerbates fragility, it does so through multiple channels:</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>1. Funding rebel and criminal groups –</strong> Trafficking offers a source of financing to rebels and criminals who have complementary skills and assets to trade (for example, vehicles to move goods, control over territories, access to criminal networks). As they already operate illegally, the additional risk of undertaking new criminal activities is lower for them.<br />
<br />
<strong>2. Rewarding and promoting skills related to violence</strong> – Be it for enforcement, assault or extortion, trafficking generates a demand for violence. As of now, this impact is still limited by the fact that trafficking is not very labor-intensive (compared to crop cultivation for instance). But were a retail market for narcotics to develop in the region, West Africa would be at risk, since many young men in the region already display many risk factors associated with violence: <em>exposure to traumatic experience, breakdown of family structure, lack of economic opportunities.</em><br />
<br />
<strong>3. Challenging the authority of the state</strong> – In marginalized areas where the state is unwilling to invest, traffickers (or the officials backing them) can win support by providing jobs, public goods and services to the local population. To truly root out local trafficking, the state needs to out-compete traffickers. This often means focusing on the provision of legal goods and services before moving to law-enforcement.<br />
<br />
<strong>4. Shifting incentives of policy-makers</strong> – Trafficking is like natural resource extraction: both command large economic rents which may shift officials’ incentives away from law enforcement and toward appropriation. In countries with weak governance, trafficking can become an integral part of statecraft, as has become apparent in Guinea-Bissau, where some state officials actively invest and support cocaine trafficking instead of their constituents’ broader interest.<br />
<br />
<strong>5. Leading to conflict between competing groups </strong>– In the absence of formal institutions, property rights and contracts can only be enforced through peer pressure, threats or violence. As rival trafficking groups compete for the control of the best routes or access to political patrons, local violence rise.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
<br />
In an upcoming post, we will delve deeper into the possible responses to this challenge and we welcome your thoughts on the topic. Have you ever come into contact with trafficking in your work? Do these channels align with your experiences in the field? Are there other ways trafficking impacts development? Have you seen successful examples of development responses to trafficking?<br />
<br />
With special thanks for their support to us in this work to:<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://bit.ly/1oH6J0F" rel="nofollow">Vanda Felbab-Brown</a> (Brookings Institute)</li>
<li>
<a href="http://1.usa.gov/1e8K1dk" rel="nofollow">Brooke Stearns Lawson</a> (USAID)</li>
<li>
<a href="http://bit.ly/1ikV278" rel="nofollow">Davin O’Regan</a> (ACSS)</li>
</ul>
Mon, 14 Apr 2014 07:00:00 -0400Laura RalstonMeasuring Development Success in Difficult Environments http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/measuring-development-success-difficult-environments
<p>
The challenge of moving from conflict and fragility to resilience and growth is immense. More than <a href="http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADK690.pdf" rel="nofollow">half of the countries</a> counted as low income have experienced conflict in the last decade. Twenty per cent of countries emerging from civil conflict return to violence in one year and <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2013/wp1302.pdf" rel="nofollow">40% in five years</a>.<br />
<br />
While the use and production of reliable evidence has become more common in much of the international development debate and in many developing countries, these inroads are less prevalent in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). Programming and policy making in countries affected by conflict and prone to conflict is often void of rigorous evidence or reliable data. It is easy to argue, and many do, that it is impossible to conduct rigorous evaluations of programs in conflict-affected states. However, in spite of the very real challenges in these environments, such <a href="https://files.nyu.edu/cds2083/public/docs/evaluating_stabilization_interventions_120816shortenedb.pdf" rel="nofollow">evaluations</a> have been conducted and have contributed valuable <a href="https://23.21.67.251/bitstream/handle/10986/15856/WPS6496.pdf?sequence=1" rel="nofollow">evidence</a> for future programming, for example in Afghanistan, the DRC, Colombia, northern Nigeria and Liberia.<br />
<br />
My unit <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/fcs" rel="nofollow">Center for Conflict Security and Development</a>, (CCSD) is teaming up with the Department of Impact Evaluation (<a href="http://go.worldbank.org/1F1W42VYV0" rel="nofollow">DIME</a>), as well as the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (<a href="http://www.3ieimpact.org/%E2%80%8E" rel="nofollow">3ie</a>), and Innovations for Poverty Action (<a href="http://www.poverty-action.org/%E2%80%8E" rel="nofollow">IPA</a>), in a series of activities to enhance the evidence base on development approaches to peace- and state-building challenges. A first goal is to scope out where our evidence base is thinnest: what are the programs and interventions that remain least tested, but have theories of change suggesting great potential? We are hoping to take stock of what we and other donor institutions have been doing in this area of development, and map this into what we have learnt and what we most need to learn more about. USIP, USAID, IRC as well as leading academics in this field and <a href="http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/12/13/000158349_20131213135609/Rendered/PDF/WPS6725.pdf" rel="nofollow">IEG</a>, are kindly helping in this endeavor, and we hope to be able to share some initial findings at our fragility forum later this year.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>
We are also hosting a workshop in Lisbon at the end of the Month with DIME, where we will be bringing together World Bank project teams from Angola, Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, DRC, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Liberia, Madagascar, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Togo with academics, who all have experience carrying out impact evaluations. As well as providing an opportunity for project teams to meet with research experts and exchange knowledge on what we learning from our ongoing field work, we will be sharing information on how to develop impact evaluations and carry them out in challenging environments. An aspiration of the workshop is to launch a series of impact evaluations in several key areas: jobs for resilience, public sector reform, gender-based violence and urban crime and violence, by bringing project teams in these areas together with researchers.<br />
<br />
This initiative is in its very early stages and we are keen to obtain input from others. Have you recently been working on projects or programs in fragile situations? What was your project? Do you have results that you can share? Where do you think we need to learn more?</p>
Wed, 26 Mar 2014 15:08:00 -0400Laura RalstonPushing the Envelopehttp://blogs.worldbank.org/futuredevelopment/pushing-envelope
<p>
<strong>Giving Cash Unconditionally in Fragile States</strong><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/6945011742/" rel="nofollow" title="2012 Spring Mtgs - Close the Gap by World Bank Photo Collection, on Flickr"><img alt="2012 Spring Mtgs - Close the Gap" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7197/6945011742_f06b21aa77.jpg" style="float:left; height:480px; margin:10px; width:320px" /></a> There have been many recent press <a href="http://econ.st/IG920k" rel="nofollow">articles</a>, a couple of potentially seminal <a href="http://bit.ly/NgNytS" rel="nofollow">journal</a> <a href="http://bit.ly/1eyPTM4l" rel="nofollow">papers</a>, and some great <a href="http://bit.ly/1eFw3xf" rel="nofollow">blogs</a> from <a href="http://bit.ly/1ngGF6y" rel="nofollow">leading</a> <a href="http://bit.ly/1iy8Qxq" rel="nofollow">economists</a> at the World Bank on the topic of Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCTs). It remains a widely debated subject, and one with perhaps a couple of myths associated with it. For example, what is cash from UCTs used for? Do the transfers lead to permanent increases in income? Does it matter how the transfers are labelled or promoted? I am particularly interested in whether UCTs could be a useful instrument in countries with low institutional capacity, such as fragile and conflict-affected states (FCS).<br />
<br />
<strong>Why UCTs in FCS?</strong> UCTs present a new approach to reducing poverty, stimulating growth and improving social welfare, that may be the most efficient and feasible mechanism in FCS. A recent <a href="http://bit.ly/1d3GrOY" rel="nofollow">evaluation of the World Bank’s work</a> on FCS recognized, “where government responsiveness to citizens has been relatively weak, finding the right modality for reaching people with services is vital to avoiding further fragility and conflict”. Plus there is always the risk of desperately needed finances being “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/04/world/africa/south-sudan-corruption/index.html" rel="nofollow">spirited away</a>” when channeled through central governments. UCTs may present a mechanism for stimulating the provision of quality services, which are often lacking, while directly reducing poverty at the same time. As Shanta Devarajan’s <a href="http://bit.ly/1ngGF6y" rel="nofollow">blog</a> puts it, “But when they <em>(the poor)</em> are given cash with which to “buy” these services, poor people can demand quality—and the provider must meet it or he won’t get paid.” We should explore more about this approach to tackling poverty: where and when it has worked, what made it work, and whether we can predict whether it will work in different contexts.<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<!--break-->
<p>
There is already <a href="http://bit.ly/1jkYwMl" rel="nofollow">a large literature</a> on conditional cash transfers (CCTs) that I will not attempt to cover here, so let us instead consider the potential benefits for <strong>making transfers unconditional, rather than conditional</strong>. First is <strong>feasibility. </strong>Many FCS countries simply do not have the <a href="http://bit.ly/1aEIJF1" rel="nofollow">service infrastructure</a> in place to condition transfers. For example, conditioning transfers on attendance in school is only feasible if there are enough places in schools to accommodate all the potential students, without a detrimental impact on the quality of education. However, as Devarajan suggests, providing unconditional transfers may catalyze service delivery by private providers, and provide the right incentives to these providers to maintain quality. Second is <strong>targeting.</strong> By making transfers unconditional we may be able to increase the likelihood that we reach the recipients who would most benefit from the transfer – not just the ones who face the lowest costs of <a href="http://bit.ly/MyFHH8" rel="nofollow">reaching conditions</a>, or who would have met conditions anyway. Often, the poorest households live furthest away from schools and healthcare centers. <a href="http://bit.ly/1bEcRyy" rel="nofollow">Conditioning</a> the transfer on specific outcomes may mean the poorest are less likely to receive the transfer and miss out on its long-term benefits. Third is <strong>transparency.</strong> By making the transfers unconditional the process of allocating the transfers will be simplified, increasing the scope for the use of automatic electronic transfer mechanisms (e.g., the use of <a href="http://bbc.in/1o2n9Om" rel="nofollow">m-Pesa</a> in Kenya or pre-loaded ATM cards for <a href="http://bit.ly/MyJNPG" rel="nofollow">Syrian refugees</a> in Lebanon). Electronic transfers create a paper trail enabling better tracking of the cash to recipients and onto purchases, which could be useful for reducing leakage, detecting corruption and learning about the consumption of the recipients.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, there are arguments for <strong>re-thinking the targeting of transfers</strong>. Recent studies have shown <strong>inaccuracies</strong> in the use of proxy indicators to target poor people. <a href="http://bit.ly/1ezsYA6" rel="nofollow">In Indonesia</a>, a proxy-means test mimicking the government’s standard practice incorrectly excluded 52% of truly poor households and incorrectly included 20% of non-poor households, based on their consumption levels. In addition, these methods of identifying the recipients are often <strong>costly</strong> and <strong>reduce the amount left to distribute.</strong> The standard features of CCTs, targeting and conditionality, have been <a href="http://bit.ly/1nhfKYf" rel="nofollow">estimated</a> to account for 60% of the administrative costs of PROGRESA, 49% of the costs for RPS in Nicaragua, and 31% for PRAF in Honduras. Perhaps it is worth considering <strong>universal UCTs</strong> in specific geographic locations – for example, rural areas with a high proportion of the population below the poverty line - where the lower costs of universal transfers outweigh the benefits of more accurate targeting. There may also be a case for making transfers universal in fragile situations where any kind of targeting may exacerbate existing tensions.<br />
<br />
Despite the potential benefits of UCTs, there are concerns. Will the recipients of transfers use them for productive purposes? Will UCTs be the most efficient and economical way of using aid to reduce poverty? Fundamentally we would like to see the recipients use the transfers to choose investments that give them the best chance of escaping poverty (and hope that this will coincide with <a href="http://bit.ly/1lHS5Vi" rel="nofollow">maximizing their welfare</a>). However, this is a really difficult problem to solve, and I would bet that many of us well-educated working professionals are not even fully optimizing or on our own production possibility frontiers! Yet, there has been recent evidence that recipients of UCTs use them productively. New research has found that the recipients use them to make <a href="http://bit.ly/1fG3tcQ" rel="nofollow">investments</a> and improve their <a href="http://bit.ly/NgNytS" rel="nofollow">monthly earnings</a>, and in another <a href="http://bit.ly/NgNRVN" rel="nofollow">paper</a> focusing on transfers to teenage girls in Malawi, UCTs had an important impact on lowering marriage and pregnancy rates, helping to empower these women. While these papers provide only a partial picture of the potential outcomes of UCTs, their initial positive results suggest that it is an area the World Bank and other development agencies should explore further.<br />
<br />
And UCTs need not be implemented in isolation: finding ways to equip recipients with information on their investment choices are important parallel interventions. As <a href="http://bit.ly/1banRGc" rel="nofollow">Richard Thaler</a> points out, “in some cases <em>(giving UCTs) </em>will work great. When people have a good sense of how to make use of that money.” He is an advocate for creating nudges to help people make the right decision and advises the British Government, which now has its own “Nudge” unit. Simply labelling UCTs with a productive investment choice may be possible approach. A recent <a href="http://stanford.io/1f2CdUv" rel="nofollow">paper</a> found that a cash transfer labelled as an education support program was sufficient to increase school participation even though no conditionality was imposed. In <a href="http://pooreconomics.com/" rel="nofollow"><em>Poor Economics</em></a>, the authors note, “It is not easy to escape from poverty, but a sense of possibility and a little bit of well-targeted help (a piece of information, a little nudge) can sometimes have surprisingly large effects”.<br />
<br />
What do you think? Can UCTs provide the resources and, assisted with “a little nudge”, can they work to reduce poverty, spur growth and improve service delivery in FCS?<br />
&nbsp;</p>
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 02:30:00 -0500Laura Ralston